Multiplicity, cultural identity and tension between scale and body type are defining characteristics for artist Patrick Flibotte. Originally from Boston, Flibotte lives and works in South Florida as a professor of sculpture at the University of Miami. The Boyeur Warehouse is his first exhibition at the Dorsch Gallery in Wynwood.

Flibotte’s huge installation employs a familiar strategy: boys playing with toys (and these toys make dismemberment seem benign with their Friedman-esque puddles of blood). The meticulously crafted set looks so effortless, as if we’d only happened upon it, that it’s easy to forget the arduousness of mold-making and casting.

Sixteen-inch soldier-like figures are arranged throughout the space, amid self-generating turmoil and stereotypical allusions to maleness. The installation reads like a story, from left to right, and catalogues the cyclical rise and fall of the toy soldiers who, in sum total, comprise their hero, artist Patrick Flibotte. The plot begins with unpainted body pieces spilling out of boxes branded with the “PF”-signature emblem. An assembly line builds new figures just as quickly as others kill them. At the end of the room, workers systematically collect the corpses and severed heads in “PF” boxes.

The entire set, constructed of dolls and cardboard boxes, taps into a legacy of puppetry in art; see Bread & Puppet Theater and its “Why Cheap Art? manifesto.” Puppets and Greek tragedies function in the same way: to imitate an action. In this sense, Flibotte functions as the set-maker. Indeed, the set’s most successful attribute is the 350 custom-made “PF” boxes. If without them, the piece would fail as an installation; with them, Flibotte makes a statement about the contemporary artist’s material selection.

The mood of the installation is intentionally flippant. See Beer Buddies: two characters, one wearing a beer helmet, the other with multiple arms, simultaneously pissing, masturbating, guzzling beer and flicking off the world. In fact, multiple characters behave irreverently, perched on boxes or smack in the center of the space, forcing viewers to weave through them — the artist is facetious.

The figures are faceless and cartoonish (reminiscent of Tom Otterness’ early period). This is not the real world, but a solipsistic and homogeneous universe of Flibotte’s “I,” which excludes the “You” of other individuals (the installation’s toys are all white-male derivatives). Of course the artist is entitled to his perspective, but isn’t this dichotomy between “I and You” (as it’s known in author Martin Buber’s discourse) at the root of our current global conflict?

Given the possible sociopolitical implications of the work, ignoring the heterogeneity of our global universe seems counterintuitive (unless this is a manifestation of white-male hegemony, which is too obvious). Perhaps Flibotte uses The Boyeur Warehouse to address the absurdity of war, without making value judgments. Some people will find that refreshing, but I’m sick of all the anti-war art. It has become generic and usually falls short of exploring solutions because, well, solutions are hard.

Though Flibotte addresses old questions, like sexual identity, physical exertion and competition (and new ones like death and tragedy), one is left wanting. Maybe the artist excludes his audience deliberately. His preoccupations aren’t new or shocking, but collectively, they’re at least sincere in their self-absorption. So, it’s suitable for macroscopic analysis, but the work is much more successful as an autobiographical investigation. It’s here that Flibotte is consistent, probing and honest.

If The Boyeur Warehouse is essentially self-parody, we’re contextually barred from demanding an explanation. We enter a tabula rasa and receive what the artist chooses to reveal: that ubiquitous “PF” emblem framed into a wall. Below it, one of Flibotte’s minions writes the seven parts of the Aristotelian Greek tragedy in drippy red paint — an odd choice. The playful drama of the installation falls short of the archetypical appeal and spectacle found in Greek tragedies. It’s not really a great fit, but an endearing attempt at witty indifference nonetheless.

Strangely, the singular, unabashedly narcissistic quality of Flibotte’s work reveals focus and intensity, but he could benefit from defying some of his conceptual limitations. That said, the work is well-crafted and stimulating and worth going to see for its presentation alone.